Backstage: NJSO Early Strings Program
By Victoria McCabe
The violinist quiets the rest of her section, bringing the others to attention so she can count off the beats for an impromptu performance. “One … two … three … play,” she says, moving the scroll of her violin up and down to set the tempo, as chamber musicians have done for centuries.
Cashmere probably isn’t aware of the tradition she is evoking, considering the fact that her violin experience totals nine months. But you can’t deny that the fourth grader has the confidence of a seasoned musician.
After she and her friends have played “Lightly Row” for the guest who has appeared in their Maple Avenue School music classroom, she excitedly asks them to flip the page so they can perform “Go Tell Aunt Rhody.”
“How does that rhythm go again?” asks one of her classmates.
“Like this,” she says, assuredly playing the melody in perfect time.
After she successfully navigates her section through “Rhody,” then “Song of the Wind,” I realize that Cashmere wants to lead her class through the entire Suzuki book for me. And since her teacher, Thaddeus Exposé, is about to call his students to attention, I’d better get a few questions in quickly.
“What do I love most about playing the violin?” Cashmere repeats my inquiry. “I love playing all the notes in a song. I like figuring out the rhythm and practicing it extra times.”
“I like to learn the difficult parts,” her friend Princess tells me, half looking at me and half sizing up the rhythm she’s working on mastering.
Kaila shyly says: “The violin lets me express myself. I practice it three hours a day.”
In an age of social everything, Cashmere and her best friend, Chemiah, have found a way to practice together. “Sometimes, when we talk on the phone, we count off a measure and play our violins at the same time. It’s fun to play together,” Chemiah says.
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Maple Avenue School is one of the 16 Newark public schools that participate in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra’s NJSO Early Strings Program, the Orchestra’s lauded in-school instructional program for second- through fourth-grade students.
Each season, this program provides up to 360 hours of on-site coaching by NJSO musicians who partner with the in-school music teachers to provide modified Suzuki string training to their students. Additionally, participating in-school music teachers receive up to six hours of professional development with the program’s Suzuki specialist, Allen Lieb of Manhattan’s prestigious School for Strings.
The NJSO Early Strings Program is multi-faceted. In addition to practical instruction, Early Strings students attend in-school chamber-music performances by NJSO musicians through the Orchestra’s REACH program. The NJSO welcomes Early Strings students to the audience for its Concerts for Young People series at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark.
This is Maple Avenue School’s first year participating in the program, so Exposé’s students began their violin and cello instruction in September, which makes the big concert they are preparing for seem all the more impressive.
In an annual tradition, NJSO Early Strings Program fourth graders performed at FiddleFest, a showcase concert given in NJPAC’s vast lobby, prior to the NJSO’s final Family Series concert of the 2011–12 season on Saturday, June 2. This year’s concert featured more than 100 student musicians, who each received a certificate of participation following the performance.
The day before FiddleFest, the Maple Avenue School students are dreaming of their big moment. “I’m excited to see all these kids playing together,” Kaila says.
“Playing for all those people …” Cashmere says with a smile. “I can’t wait for the applause and the certificate!”
“My whole family is coming,” Chemiah adds proudly.
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Exposé gets his class’s attention and focuses them for their FiddleFest dress rehearsal. He sits at the piano, rehearsing the cellos, then the violins, then the whole class, leading them through the songs they will play with their Early Strings peers the following day.
He reviews key terms like allegro, adagio, staccato and legato, clipping or stretching each word with his voice as the students eagerly shout out the definition of the term he is mimicking.
There’s some chatter between pieces, but it isn’t restless kids’ gossip. “You should play this part in this rhythm,” Chemiah whispers to Princess, pointing to the score and softly moving her bow across the A string.
As Exposé demonstrates proper bowing technique, Cashmere moves her right arm in sync, glancing quickly at her hand to make sure she’s positioned it correctly.
Exposé is the K–8 instrumental-music teacher at Maple Avenue School, and like his school and students, this school year has been his first in the NJSO Early Strings Program. NJSO violist Christine Terhune is the Early Strings musician coach at Maple Avenue School, regularly providing additional instruction to the class. (Naomi Youngstein, Michael Stewart, Frances Rowell and Kathleen Foster also coach Early Strings classrooms across the district.)
Exposé says that one of the most important components of his students’ Early Strings experience is the opportunity for them to see the full NJSO in concert at NJPAC. Not only do the kids get to experience a full symphony orchestra, but they also get the thrill of seeing their NJSO musician coach perform.
“Cashmere came up to me after the symphony concert [last month] and said, ‘Mr. Exposé, Mr. Exposé! Did you see Ms. Chris up on stage? I did!’
“They get so excited when I say that [Terhune] is coming to teach. They connect it to seeing her on stage. And I always learn something from her as well.”
“The amount of progress the students have made in just one year is amazing,” Exposé says. The teacher says FiddleFest, and the chance for his class to perform with students from other schools, is a big accomplishment: “It is a great event. What means the most to me is that the students enjoy it. I want these kids to have everything I never got in school, as well as everything I did.”
Whatever his students decide to do in life, he says, “the important thing is that they’re happy. I tell them that whether they grow up to be a doctor, a teacher, a garbage collector … Playing music gives you a whole other option; it could lead to an opportunity to get a scholarship for college. [Or as a hobby,] you can play music when you’re sad or happy, when you have some time.”
A professional musician himself—he plays string bass for regular freelance jazz gigs—Exposé can connect with his string students in a unique way, occasionally staging and performing in school assemblies with jazz musicians.
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For the NJSO Early Strings Program’s first eight years, the Center for Arts Education Research of Columbia University’s Teachers College annually assessed the program and analyzed its impact “on students’ academic success and self-esteem, as well as the impact of the Program on the school and community.” Dr. Harold F. Abeles, co-director of the Center for Arts Education Research at Columbia and professor of Music and Music Education, prepared the 2009 report.
Abeles writes: “Consistently, [Early Strings] students have outperformed their schoolmates on year-end achievement tests. This result, based on gain scores, appears to further cement the relationship between string instruction and academic achievement.”
Regarding performance on standardized tests, Columbia researchers found that “[Early Strings] third graders performed at a higher level than other third-grade students at the same schools [and] other third graders in Newark and New Jersey as well.”
Citing other evidence of academic success, Abeles writes: “For the last seven years, the teachers and principals we interviewed almost unanimously indicated that the Program has a positive influence on the students’ academic work.” He notes that interviews reveal the belief that participating in Early Strings has a positive effect on characteristics such as “the ability to concentrate, the capacity to cooperate with others and self-confidence.” The researchers also say that Early Strings has increased parental involvement in participating schools.
Exposé sees that impact in action; his classroom walls hold the evidence. Among motivational and music posters are posters showing math and musical equations. “I’ve seen how music matters in relation to their test scores,” he says. “Think of the question of how many pints of milk are in a gallon. Now relate that to music—How many eighth notes are in a whole note? [It’s giving them] another way to learn.”
He sees a confidence in his students: “They speak with conviction, and you can see the way they carry themselves.”
Early Strings’ reach extends beyond the years students spend in the program. Eidryce, a sophomore cellist at Newark’s Arts High School, recalls: “What I remember most about my experience through the Early Strings Program is the focus on technique. [My teachers’] attention to detail and patience helped me a lot. I don’t know if I would have been accepted into Arts High if it hadn’t been for the Early Strings Program. Ms. Kathleen [Foster, an Early Strings coach,] helped me tremendously with my sound on the cello.
“Music is on my mind all the time. My YouTube viewing history is constantly string music videos. I’m always humming tunes. I just always have to always be around music. I would love to have a career in music, playing in an orchestra. The Brandenburg Concertos are my favorite, especially No. 3—I get goose bumps about it.”
Since the program’s inception in 2000, the NJSO has served nearly 4,000 students and 30 music educators in Newark. With generous support from NJSO funders, the Orchestra has invested more than $2 million in the children of Newark through the NJSO Early Strings Program.
This school year, Early Strings has served approximately 780 students across 16 Newark schools. Eleven of this year’s Early Strings schools had fourth-grade students perform in this year’s FiddleFest: Belmont Runyon School, Benjamin Franklin School, Camden Street School, Chancellor Avenue School, 14th Avenue School, Harriet Tubman School, Lincoln School, Maple Avenue School, Quitman Street School, Rafael Hernandez School and Speedway School.
Lady Liberty Academy Charter School, Lafayette Street School, 18th Avenue School, Louise A. Spencer Elementary School and South 17th Street School also participate in the program.
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Joshua, one of the student cellists whom Exposé has collectively named “The Fab Five,” succinctly and humorously sums up the home practice experience most—if not all—budding instrumentalists face. “When I first got my cello, and I would practice at home, my mom would say, ‘Can’t you practice quieter?’ Now, she wants me to play for all of her friends!”
The other boys nod knowingly next to him.
“My favorite player is Yo-Yo Ma,” Sean tells me. “And I love Bach.” Sean has watched videos of Ma on YouTube and talks excitedly of how good his classical idol is.
“I’m really excited to play at NJPAC,” Joshua says. “That’s kind of my dream. I want to play music on stage for a lot of people.”
He says he wants to play music at Madison Square Garden one day, and he doesn’t know if he’d rather play classical or popular music. But then again, that really isn’t the point.
The point of teaching kids the violin or the cello isn’t necessarily to turn them into future concert musicians.
The point is to open their minds to that possibility, and to help them believe that it—or any other dream they have—is right there in their fingertips, right there within their reach.
All they have to do is study their score, maybe call a friend and put the phone on speaker, and practice.
Learn more about the NJSO Early Strings Program here.